Читать книгу The Lady of the Ice - James De Mille - Страница 16

Saying the above words, Jack leaned back, and surveyed me with the stern complacency of despair. After staring at me for some time, and evidently taking some sort of grim comfort out of the speechlessness to which he had reduced me by his unparalleled narrative, he continued his confessions:

"Last night, I made that infernal blunder with the widow—confound her!—that is, I mean of course, bless her! It's all the same, you know. To-day you behold the miserable state to which I am reduced. To-morrow I will get a reply from her. Of course, she will consent to fly. I know very well how it will be. She will hint at some feasible mode, and some convenient time. She will, of course, expect me to settle it all up, from her timid little hints; and I must settle it up, and not break my faith with her. And now, Macrorie, I ask you, not merely as an officer and a gentleman, but as a man, a fellow-Christian, and a sympathizing friend, what under Heaven am I to do?"

He stopped, leaned back in his chair, lighted once more his extinguished pipe, and I could see through the dense volumes of smoke which he blew forth, his eyes fixed earnestly upon me, gleaming like two stars from behind gloomy storm-clouds.

I sat in silence, and thought long and painfully over the situation. I could come to no conclusion, but I had to say something, and I said it.

"Put it off," said I at last, in a general state of daze.

"Put what off?"

"What? Why, the widow—no, the—the elopement, of course. Yes," I continued, firmly, "put off the elopement."

"Put off the elopement!" ejaculated Jack. "What! after proposing it so desperately—after threatening to blow my brains out in front of her door?"

"That certainly is a consideration," said I, thoughtfully; "but can't you have—well, brain-fever—yes, that's it, and can't you get some friend to send word to her?"

"That's all very well; but, you see, I'd have to keep my room. If I went out, she'd hear of it. She's got a wonderful way of hearing about my movements. She'll find out about the widow before the week's over. Oh, no! that's not to be done."

"Well, then," said I, desperately, "let her find it out. The blow would then fall a little more gently."

"You seem to me," said Jack, rather huffily, "to propose that I should quietly proceed to break her heart. No! Hang it, man, if it comes to that I'll do it openly, and make a clean breast of it, without shamming or keeping her in suspense."

"Well, then," I responded, "why not break off with the widow?"

"Break off with the widow!" cried Jack, with the wondering accent of a man who has heard some impossible proposal.

"Certainly; why not?"

"Will you be kind enough to inform me what thing short of death could ever deliver me out of her hands?" asked Jack, mildly.

"Elope, as you proposed."

"That's the very thing I thought of; but the trouble is, in that case she would devote the rest of her life to vengeance. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman wronged,' you know. She'd move heaven and earth, and never end, till I was drummed out of the regiment. No, my boy. To do that would be to walk with open eyes to disgrace, and shame, and infamy, with a whole community, a whole regiment, and the Horse-Guards at the back of them, all banded together to crush me. Such a fate as this would hardly be the proper thing to give to a wife that a fellow loves."

"Can't you manage to make the widow disgusted with you?"

"No, I can't," said Jack, peevishly. "What do you mean?"

"Why, make it appear as though you only wanted to marry her for her money."

"Oh, hang it, man! how could I do that? I can't play a part, under any circumstances, and that particular part would be so infernally mean, that it would be impossible. I'm such an ass that, if she were even to hint at that, I'd resent it furiously.

"Can't you make her afraid about your numerous gallantries?"

"Afraid? why she glories in them. So many feathers in her cap, and all that, you know."

"Can't you frighten her about your debts and general extravagance—hint that you're a gambler, and so on?"

"And then she'd inform me, very affectionately, that she intends to be my guardian angel, and save me from evil for all the rest of my life."

"Can't you tell her all about your solemn engagement to Miss Phillips?"

"My engagement to Miss Phillips? Why, man alive, she knows that as well as you do."

"Knows it! How did she find it out?"

"How? Why I told her myself."

"The deuce you did!"

Jack was silent.

"Well, then," said I, after some further thought, "why not tell her every thing?"

"Tell her every thing?"

"Yes—exactly what you've been telling me. Make a clean breast of it."

Jack looked at me for some time with a curious expression.

"My dear boy," said he, at length, "do you mean to say that you are really in earnest in making that proposition?"

"Most solemnly in earnest," said I.

"Well," said Jack, "it shows how mistaken I was in leaving any thing to your imagination. You do not seem to understand," he continued, dolefully, "or you will not understand that, when a fellow has committed himself to a lady as I did, and squeezed her hand with such peculiar ardor, in his efforts to save himself and do what's right, he often overdoes it. You don't seem to suspect that I might have overdone it with the widow. Now, unfortunately, that is the very thing that I did. I did happen to overdo it most confoundedly. And so the melancholy fact remains that, if I were to repeat to her, verbatim, all that I've been telling you, she would find an extraordinary discrepancy between such statements and those abominably tender confessions in which I indulged on that other occasion. Nothing would ever convince her that I was not sincere at that time; and how can I go to her now and confess that I am a humbug and an idiot? I don't see it. Come, now, old fellow, what do you think of that? Don't you call it rather a tough situation? Do you think a man can see his way out of it? Own up, now. Don't you think it's about the worst scrape you ever heard of? Come, now, no humbug."

The fellow seemed actually to begin to feel a dismal kind of pride in the very hopelessness of his situation, and looked at me with a gloomy enjoyment of my discomfiture.

For my part, I said nothing, and for the best of reasons: I had nothing to say. So I took refuge in shaking my head.

"You see," Jack persisted, "there's no help for it. Nobody can do any thing. There's only one thing, and that you haven't suggested."

"What's that?" I asked, feebly.

Jack put the tip of his forefinger to his forehead, and snapped his thumb against his third.

"I haven't much, brains to speak of," said he, "but if I did happen to blow out what little I may have, it would be the easiest settlement of the difficulty. It would be cutting the knot, instead of attempting the impossible task of untying it. Nobody would blame me. Everybody would mourn for me, and, above all, four tender female hearts would feel a pang of sorrow for my untimely fate. By all four I should be not cursed, but canonized. Only one class would suffer, and those would be welcome to their agonies. I allude, of course, to my friends the Duns."

To this eccentric proposal, I made no reply whatever.

"Well," said Jack, thoughtfully, "it isn't a bad idea. Not a bad idea," he repeated, rising from his chair and putting down his pipe, which had again gone out owing to his persistent loquacity. "I'll think it over," he continued, seriously. "You bear in mind my little directions about the head-stone, Macrorie, four feet by eighteen inches, old fellow, very plain, and, mark me, only the name and date. Not a word about the virtues of the deceased, etc. I can stand a great deal, but that I will not stand. And now, old chap, I must be off; you can't do me any good, I see."

"At any rate, you'll wait till to-morrow," said I, carelessly.

"Oh, there's no hurry," said he. "Of course, I must wait till then.

I'll let you know if any thing new turns up."

And saying this, he took his departure.